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View Poll Results: Is there a bias against boys in the American educational system?

Re: Are Public Schools In The US Biased Against Males?

Historically, Americans “hadn’t needed a very rigorous education, and they hadn’t gotten it. Wealth had made rigor optional.” But now, she points out, “everything had changed. In an automated, global economy, kids needed to be driven; they need to know how to adapt, since they would be doing it all their lives. They needed a culture of rigor.”

Re: Are Public Schools In The US Biased Against Males?

Boys scored higher than girls in maths in 37 out of the 65 countries and economies, while girls outperformed boys in just five countries; Jordan, Qatar, Thailand, Malaysia and Iceland. The OECD claim though that the gender gap is relatively small - in only six countries is it greater than the equivalent of half a year of schooling.According to the OECD, girls "feel less motivated to learn maths and have less confidence in their abilities than boys".The OECD also found that between 2000 and 2012, the gender gap in reading performance - favouring girls - widened in 11 countries.The Pisa results show that when it comes to science, boys and girls perform similarly. But in Colombia, Japan and Spain a gender gap in favour of boys was observed in 2012 despite no significant difference existing in 2006.

Re: Are Public Schools In The US Biased Against Males?

While I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of the educational system overall - I don't think it's quite on-topic.

Is there a direct, or indirect bias or discrimination against boys?

Or is the problem just that there's currently no reasonable or acceptable method of figuring out how to handle those kids that are tough to handle and/or disruptive. Which just happens to be boys the majority of the time.

And it's not all boys is it?

The problem seems to be more that "we" don't know how or what to do with kids that can't focus like the others.

What do "we" do with the rammy, bouncing off the walls, can't sit still, unable to focus and concentrate, and/or disruptive students?

Ignore them? Fail them? Shuffle them through? Grade them differently? Send them to a different school? Put them in special classes? Medicate them? Hold them back? Start them later?

A good start is to recognize that the ability to sit still and focus is a skill that needs to be taught and takes time to develop. We have to accept that, like it or not, it is now the school's job in many cases, because often parents are unwilling and/or unable to do it. Kids will enter school with a wide range of abilities to sit still and focus. Kids, especially in the first few grades, should not be judged and punished for lacking the skill, they need to be trained and given positive reinforcement.

We should also consider how much of the ability to passively absorb information and do paper work is really helpful and necessary. Some people learn better by asking questions, experimenting and having a physical connection to the information. Most of us will not wind up working as accountants chained to a desk all day, more and more tasks are being automated, and accountants don't do math on paper anymore. There are good reasons why much of today's innovation is happening in work places that look nothing like a classroom or traditional office.

With the internet and computers, video and other technologies we should be able to transform learning into a fun process and put more emphasis on the ability to learn on one's own.

Re: Are Public Schools In The US Biased Against Males?

With the internet and computers, video and other technologies we should be able to transform learning into a fun process and put more emphasis on the ability to learn on one's own.

Exactly! With the exception of reading and math, much of what we learn in school is likely to be obsolete soon. Learning of facts is already obsolete, what with a world of facts readily available on the internet. The ability to evaluate the information we get is far more valuable, as is the simple joy of learning and exploring. Education does not start in Kindergarten and end at graduation, but is a lifelong project.

"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud... [he's] playing the American public for suckers." Mitt Romney

Re: Are Public Schools In The US Biased Against Males?

From OP link-
"The author’s third stop is Poland, a country that has scaled the heights of international test-score rankings in record time by following the formula common to Finland and South Korea: well-trained teachers, a rigorous curriculum and a challenging exam required of all graduating seniors. In the city of Wroclaw, Ripley meets up with Tom, a bookish teenager from Pennsylvania, and discovers yet another difference between the schools in top-performing countries and those in the United States. In Tom’s hometown high school, Ripley observes, sports were “the core culture.” Four local reporters show up to each football game. In Wroclaw, “sports simply did not figure into the school day; why would they? Plenty of kids played pickup soccer or basketball games on their own after school, but there was no confusion about what school was for — or what mattered to kids’ life chances.”

It’s in moments like these that Ripley succeeds in making our own culture and our own choices seem alien — quite a feat for an institution as familiar and fiercely defended as high school. The question is whether the startling perspective provided by this masterly book can also generate the will to make changes. For all our griping about American education, Ripley notes, we’ve got the schools we want."

The author focuses on culture which does have some effect. The article also mentioned in some parts of the world, they have a homework curfew (10:00 pm) so kids don't study all night long. With all these things mentioned I see nothing mentioned about how America has produced, by far, the largest chunk of innovators in the entire world. I have a strange feeling most weren't those kids with a book in their face 24/7 or those kids writing endlessly about those innovators. No, because many of our innovators are the movers and shakers. Those constantly engaged in scientific play and those who are curious about how things tick. Taking things apart and putting them back together again. Those that have a well rounded education that keeps kids curious and ENGAGED. Naturally, that is not sitting at a desk all day long with pencil and paper in hand. Below is a good article-

Snip-You might think the Chinese educational leaders would be happy that their kids are scoring so high on these international competitions. But they’re not. More and more they realize that their system is failing terribly. At the same time that we are continuing to try to be more like them, they are trying—though without much success so far—to be more like us, or like we were before we began trying so hard to be like them. They see that their system is quashing creativity and initiative, with the result that it produces decent bureaucrats and number crunchers, but very few inventors and entrepreneurs. In response to the same PISA report that led Duncan to his “wakeup call,” Jiang Xuaqin, director of the International Division of Peking University High School, wrote this in the Wall Street Journal: “The failings of a rote-memorization system are well-known: Lack of social and practical skills, absence of self-discipline and imagination, loss of curiosity and passion for learning. … One way we will know when we’re succeeding in changing our schools is when those PISA scores come down.” (Italics added) [2]. Be Glad for Our Failure to Catch Up with China in Education | Psychology Today